Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 2)

There are a great many ways of acquiring the power. Gaze into a crvstal, or into a pool of ink in the palm of the hand, or into a mirror, or into a teacup. Just as with a microscope the expert operator keeps both eves open, though seeing only through the one at the eye-piece of the instrument, so the natural eyes, ceasing to give anv message to the brain, the attention is withdrawn from them, and the man begins to see through the Astral eyes. These methods appear to The Master Therion to be unsatisfactory. Very often they do not work at ail. It is difficult to teach a person to use these methods; and, worst of ali, they are purely passive! You can see only what is shewn you, and you are probably shewn things perfectly pointless and irrelevant. The proper metnod is as followsi — Devciop the body oi Liglil until îî is jiisl ns real to y ou as your otlier body. teacli it îo travel to any desired Symbol, and enable it te perform ail neeessary Rites and Invocations. In sbort, edncate it. Ultimately, the relation of that body with your own must be exceedingly intimâtes but before this harmonizing takes place, you should begin by a careful différentiation. The first thing to do, therefore, is to get the body outside your own. To avoid muddling the two, you begin by imagining a shape resem- bÜng yourself standing in front of you. Do not say: “Oh, it’s only imagination!” lhe time to test that is later on, when you hâve secured a fairly ciear mental image of such a body. T'ry to ima¬ gine how your own body would look if you were standing in its place j try to transfer your consciousness to the Body of Light. Your own body has its eyes shut. Use the eyes of the Body of Light to describe the objects in the room behind you. Don’t say, “It’s only an effort of subconscious memory”...the time to test that is later on. As soon as you feel more or less at home in the fine body, let it rise in the air. Keep on feeling the sense of rising; keep on looking about you as you rise until you see landscapes or beings of the astral plane. Such hâve a quality ail their own. They are not like material things — they are not like mental pictures — they seem to lie between the two. After some practice has made you adept, so that in the course 146